Extension Through Innovative ICT- The example of Digital Green

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Agricultural Extension

Training & Visit: Face-to-face interactions of extension officers and farmers

500,000 extension officers in developing countries

Extension agent-to-farmer ratio: 1:2,600 in South Asia1:1,800 in Sub-Saharan Africa

High recurring costs, weak accountability, under-resourced, limited training

Extension officer “commuting” between farms

Dissemination of expert agricultural information to farmers

Human Mediated Extension system: uses social organization and technology to

improve the efficiency of extension systems

Vision:A world where all individuals can live a life of dignity

Mission:Integrate innovative technology with global development

efforts to improve human well-being

2006 2008 2009 2012 2015

Project at Microsoft Research

Non-profit in USA and

India

Implementation in 4 Indian states

Scaled to 7 Indian states

11,000 villages 1 million farmers

1,800 villages125,000 farmersExtend to health & nutritionEthiopia and Ghana

WHERE WE WORKHow we evolved in India

Research Organizations

Service providers

Implementers and

practitioners

• Uses ICT based community oriented approaches to improve effectiveness and efficiency of knowledge transfer

• Acts as an effective knowledge management platform

• Builds on innate capacities for community to community transfer of knowledge

Since June 2012…Countries : 6Farmers reached : 10,56,965Villages : 13,250Community Videos : 3,105Video Disseminations : 481,368Viewer Adoptions : 16,38,293

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Video provides…– Resource-savings: human, cost, time– Accessibility for non-literate farmers

Digital Video for Extension

Community approach

Demonstration of technology and

Capacity Building

KVKs / FTCs

Efficient technology stack

Knowledge management

platform

Initiation

Mobilization Situational Awareness Training

Production

Topic Identification Storyboarding Shooting Editing

Diffusion

Dissemination Adoption Reporting

Analytics

Farmerbook

Thank you

digitalGREEN www.digitalgreen.org | @digitalgreenorg